# What are the parameters for What's in the Sky Tonight?
**URL:** https://forum.telescopius.com/t/what-are-the-parameters-for-whats-in-the-sky-tonight/855
**Category:** General Questions
**Created:** [August 19, 2023, 11:59pm UTC](https://forum.telescopius.com/t/what-are-the-parameters-for-whats-in-the-sky-tonight/855 "2023-08-19T23:59:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lockwood](https://forum.telescopius.com/u/Lockwood)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2023, 11:59pm UTC](https://forum.telescopius.com/t/what-are-the-parameters-for-whats-in-the-sky-tonight/855/1 "2023-08-19T23:59:06Z")
What are the parameters for What’s in the Sky Tonight ?
Maybe I’m missing something, but some of the targets suggested are not ideal for that particular night. Maybe at a different time of the year, but not on that particular night.
Please bring me up to speed for I have not found any advantage of using that feature on the website.
For instance, Pleiades doesn’t appear over my preset 30 degrees until 2:44am and the Zenith doesn’t occur until 7:15am in the morning. That particular target shouldn’t even appear in the list ?
See image attached
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### Author:  [@sebagr](https://forum.telescopius.com/u/sebagr)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://forum.telescopius.com/t/what-are-the-parameters-for-whats-in-the-sky-tonight/855/2 "2023-08-24T15:01:38Z")
Since it’s impossible to predict what kind of targets each user will prefer (visual vs. astrophotography; early vs. late session, etc.), the homepage suggestions are a random selection considering some of these things:
- Objects must reach an altitude of at least 30 degrees for one hour during the astronomical night - that’s why you see objects staying above 30 degrees for one hour right before the sunrise.
- Objects are filtered by size depending on their types (e.g. galaxies have a _minimum_ size requirement of 5 arcmin, while galaxy clusters have a _maximum_ size of 5 degrees)
- Depending on the current date, a minimum distance to the moon is required too, using the Moon-Avoidance Lorentzian
In the near future I’ll be refactoring this section when I release the upgraded DSO database so I might tweak these parameters a bit.
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### Author:  [@Lockwood](https://forum.telescopius.com/u/Lockwood)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2023, 3:16pm UTC](https://forum.telescopius.com/t/what-are-the-parameters-for-whats-in-the-sky-tonight/855/3 "2023-08-24T15:16:19Z")
Now it makes sense to why I couldn’t make sense of it 😉
I always check that feature when I initially log on to the website, but always end of using the more versatile and informative DSO Targets feature
Thank you for the explanation
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### Author:  [@mrflib](https://forum.telescopius.com/u/mrflib)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2023, 11:28am UTC](https://forum.telescopius.com/t/what-are-the-parameters-for-whats-in-the-sky-tonight/855/4 "2023-08-25T11:28:05Z")
Ooooo new toys! Is there any info on what you’re planning to implement?